In the related art, for example, the activity of golfing requires a certain amount of gripping force with the club to allow swinging action and impact with a golf ball. Users who experience a weakened grip due to complications with arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, accretions of hand and wrist injuries, congenital defects, nerve injury, and normal aging processes lack the sufficient gripping power needed to ensure golf club stability, control, and alignment during swing and impact with the golf ball. For those people who are afflicted with a weakened grip, they may find golf virtually impossible to play. Users with weakened hand strength, or users who have not been taught a fundamentally sound or technically-correct grip configuration, will often have difficulty squaring the clubface at impact with the golf ball which can lead to twisting of the golf club and club face, thereby producing an inaccurate shot, whereby inaccurate shots veer from the intended trajectory. Furthermore, as a user's hands, even those of an able-bodied person, fatigue during a round of golf, play becomes even more difficult and the club may completely slip out of the hands and become airborne creating a serious hazard to people standing nearby.
The golfing and sporting industries have not adequately addressed the problems encountered by those with weakened hand strength. Furthermore, these industries have not provided effective grip training aids for teaching users a technically-correct gripping configuration. Although there are many schools of thought regarding the correct grip of the gripping portion of the golf club shaft, golf instruction schools predominately teach two styles of gripping configuration. In the Vardon grip, the little finger of the trailing hand (the hand disposed lower on the club, e.g., the right hand for a right-handed player) is placed between the index and middle finger on the lead hand (the hand disposed higher on the club). The lead-hand thumb should fit in the “lifeline” of the trailing hand. The second technique teaches that the grip should be located in the palm of the hands, thereby avoiding interlocking between the fingers. This second style is referred to as the “Natural Grip.”
Some other attempts have been made to solve these problems in the related art; however, these approaches are cumbersome. Some users have resorted to the use of pine tar which only lasts a short time, thereby requiring frequent re-application which tends to transfer pine tar to the clothing, the golf ball, and the equipment, thereby further hindering the player's game. Some grip manufacturers have integrated enlarged golf grips or raised ridges or dots on the grip surface. However, these changes do not sufficiently solve the aforementioned problems in the related art.
Unfortunately, the related art inventions have not solved these issues. U.S. Pat. No. 5,742,942 does attempt to enable a person to attain a better grasp of the golf club; however, this product is cumbersome to use. The strap mechanism is difficult and awkward to fasten around a person's hand(s). If a user is experiencing bilateral weakness, thereby requiring both hands to be strapped, third party assistance is required. In addition, this product may be embarrassing for some users to use in the company of friends, family, or strangers due to its appearance and laborious application.
In addition to the foregoing problems faced by those having weakened hand strength in relation to sporting goods, such problems extend to grasping of many other physical objects. Therefore, a long-felt need exists for a system, apparatus, and method that enable persons, having a weakened grip, or able-bodied persons, desiring a more secure grip, to grasp an object with an appropriate force so as to stabilize the object and to avoid dropping the object inadvertently.